


If Your Hands Were In Mine, I'd Be Sure They'd Not Sever

by Anise



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-06 18:42:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17945066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anise/pseuds/Anise
Summary: Ginny hasn’t seen Draco since the last time they met in a moonlit corridor after the last battle at Hogwarts. So why is he following her around the Ministry of Magic five years later, desperately trying to warn her about unseen dangers? And why does she still feel that same old disturbing attraction to him?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for the 2010 FIA Exchange, yay! :) So as part of the Ginormous Project of Doom and Posting It All On AO3... here it is. 
> 
> _Táim sínte ar do thuama_ is a seventeenth century Irish ballad, so it’s been out of copyright for quite a while by now. There have been several different translations and it’s been covered by a lot of different people, including Iarla Ó Lionáird, Sinead O’Connor, Dead Can Dance, Kate Rusby, and me.

Ginny put her nontuple espresso down on _Madame Lonelyheart’s Coffehouse_ café table with a decisive crash.

 

“You’re going to be up until infinity o’clock or so in the morning because of that, you know,” Luna said mildly. “You really might be better off with an Amphetamine potion if you need extra energy. Would you like me to brew you some when we get back to the flat tonight? You do seem a bit _snappish_ lately—“

 

“I’m not snappish at all!” snapped Ginny. “I’m just trying to figure out why you keep talking to Draco Malfoy when we both know that he’s nothing but a piece of evil puppy-torturing small-kitten-drowning scum who undoubtedly doesn’t ‘mind the gap’ when instructed to do so in the Underground!”

 

“You do seem to have given his character quite a bit of thought,” Luna said mildly, “considering that you haven’t spoken to him since Hogwarts.”

 

“I haven’t given him any thought at all,” said Ginny. “I haven’t noticed him any longer than it takes me to push past him on my way to the office of the Junior Minister of Culture—why _does_ that wing have to be so close to the elevator to the Department of Mysteries, by the way?”

 

“It’s the same elevator that goes everywhere else in the Ministry,” Luna pointed out, fairly enough.

 

Ginny glared at her. “Yeah, well, then I’d like to understand why Draco Malfoy always seems just about to get in it while I’m in the middle of walking to Blaise Zabini’s office. It’s bad enough that I’m on my way to be sexually harassed whilst making my best attempt to show Zabini my sketches for those stupid statues. I shouldn’t have to see _Draco Malfoy_ hanging about the elevator and staring at me like the specter at the feast as well. Why does he always _look_ at me like that? He doesn’t ever even _say_ anything. Well, not that I’d _want_ him to say anything. Then I’d have to say something _back_. It’s bad enough that I feel obligated to look at him, just because he’s looking at me—“ Ginny broke off and rather abruptly downed the rest of her espresso at this point. Four years out of school, Draco Malfoy quite assuredly _was_ something worth looking at, even under those dreadful florescent lights in all the Ministry corridors, and even with that strangely haunted look on his face that he always seemed to have when looking at her. Not that she would ever admit it. Not that she would ever remember… well, not that there even was anything to remember when it came to Draco Malfoy, because whatever it was that had almost happened between them all those years ago, had never really quite happened.

 

“Anyway, none of this explains why I saw you having tea with him on Tuesday, Luna,” said Ginny, getting to the main point.

 

“It’s so awfully nice to catch up with old school friends,” Luna said vaguely. “Especially those who haven’t been struck down by the Creeping Calliopes from tropical climes. It’s so unfortunate whenever that occurs. And Draco’s right in the Department of Mysteries now, after all. Just a few floors away from the Department of Dreadfully Detailed and Remarkably Meaningless Memoranda. I’m supposed to get a new cubicle next week, did you know?”

 

“No.. I didn’t… I suppose this one will be larger than one foot square, well, congratulations, Luna… anyway, the only _mystery_ ,” growled Ginny, “is how he managed to spread enough bribes around to clear the Malfoy name. I wouldn’t have thought that even the Malfoy money was enough for that. Maybe it was those exceptionally tight trousers he always wears. I can just picture him bending over in front of the chief justice of the Wizengamot, _supposedly_ in order to pick up a stray Galleon from the floor, and then—“

 

“I thought you didn’t notice him at all,”Luna said mildly.

 

“I don’t!” Ginny said through gritted teeth. Then she sighed. “I need a night out, Luna. Maybe Saturday, just for some moral support before going in to approve those marble columns for the sculptures on Monday…. What are you doing on Saturday? Want to try that new Irish pub I heard about in Hogsmeade?”

 

“Sounds lovely,” said Luna. “I hear they have a traditional Irish bard who plays ballads about death and tragedy and battles where everyone got killed and all sorts of cheerful things.”

 

“Just what I need,” said Ginny, getting up from the table. “Er… what’s Malfoy doing there, anyway?” she asked, as casually as she could. “In his work, I mean?”

 

“Nobody knows, really,” said Luna. “That’s why it’s the Department of Mysteries.”

 

“How about this?” asked Ginny that afternoon, pushing the final set of sketches across the large walnut desk at the Junior Minister of Culture.

 

“Mm-hmm,” came a noncommittal voice from behind a copy of _Playwizard._

 

Ginny glared at him. “Put that _down_. You’re supposed to be giving these your final approval.”

 

Blaise Zabini set the magazine down and leered at her. “I’ll give you final approval, all right.”

 

“You’re supposed to sign off on these, so I can start to work on those marble columns when they come in on Monday.”

 

“You can start to work on a marble column right now. And you don’t have to wait until Monday.” He leaned across the desk and smiled at her.

 

“If you don’t do this, then I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board!”

 

“I’ve got your drawing board right here,” he drawled, putting his feet up on the desk and leaning back.

 

” _Zabini!_ Do you even know what you’re talking about?”

 

“Not really.” He shrugged. “But it’s got something to do with sex,right?”

 

“No! Not everything is about sex!”

 

He looked genuinely confused. “It isn’t?”

 

She sighed. “Blaise, why in the world did you take this job as Junior Minister of Culture?”

 

“Because it’s a great way to pick up both gay boys and hot new girlfriends,” Blaise said promptly.

 

“Don’t you care about the art at all?”

 

“You mean this job has something to do with art?” He looked even more confused.

 

Ginny smacked her forehead with her palm. “Look, will you just sign here and let me go home so I can relax, take a nice long bubble bath, and get ready for the weekend—and don’t you _dare_ drool on these sketches, Zabini!” She waved her wand threateningly. “Don’t make me hex your balls into a knot again!”

 

Blaise winced. “Right, right. A rare moment of professionalism coming right up. Oh, by the way, while I’m temporarily _not_ utterly obsessed with sex, let me ask you this—do you think you could put in a good word for me with Lovegood?”

 

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you just feed her the usual line about how honored she should be to shag the Great Zabini?”

 

“Because somehow, I think it actually might not _work_. I really suspect that she’s got more than two brain cells to rub together. Quite unlike my usual conquests.”

 

“She does.”

 

“Then why did you encourage me to try my normal approach?”

 

Ginny smiled. “Actually, I was planning to videotape Luna’s reaction to you and put it on HexTube. I think that the entire wizarding world would be very entertained by watching you run from a horde of Vengeful Vomiting Velicoraptors.”

 

Blaise gulped. Hastily, he scribbled his name across the contract she thrust at him. Then he peered past her, into the hallway, and his face creased into a frown. “Why the hell is Malfoy always standing by the elevators whenever you’re in here, Ginny?”

 

“You mean you’ve noticed it too?” she gasped.

 

“Well, I always thought my old mate was the hottest of the male hotties at Hogwarts, and he hasn’t cooled down even one little bit if you ask me,” said Blaise. “Can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to convince him to take a walk on the wild side, but alas, he’s hetero as could be. And he’s been so bloody _serious_ since he started that job at the Department of Mysteries. Downright glum. Still, those trousers of his are evil as ever, aren’t they… of _course_ I notice anything he does. And whenever you’re about, Ginstress, so is he.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, yay! :) Enjoy

Ginny cast Draco a surreptitious glance as she waited for the elevator that afternoon. He flicked his eyes at her as well. There was something very strange in the way he looked at her… something almost like… _fear_? He licked his lips. They were very pink, Ginny couldn’t help noticing. But then, she’d never been able to help noticing his lips. The bottom one was very full, the top one thinner and sort of folded-over looking, and she couldn’t seem to stop staring at his mouth. He almost looked as if he was about to speak…

 

The button lit up for their floor, and the doors opened. He stepped in quickly. The moment had passed. Ginny stood there, feeling strangely bereft. But then, she’d had many moments like that, when it came to Draco Malfoy.

 

The clock at the end of the long, dark corridor in the Ministry art library whirred just before striking the hour. Ginny glanced up. The cuckoo hopped out on its little perch. “Ten o’clock and all’s well, except that you look tired as hell. Go home and take a bubble bath, Ginny Weasley,” it chirped.

 

“Mouthy little featherball,” she muttered at it. She hadn’t meant to stay at the Ministry nearly so late, but it had taken much longer than she’d thought to look up the records of previous arrangements of statuary around the fountain in the main atrium. She’d had to delve deeper and deeper into the stacks until she’d reached a part of the library was almost never used, and in all honesty, she wasn’t entirely sure how she was even going to get _out_ anymore. She stood tiptoe in an attempt to see over all the filing cabinets. Was that a figure moving somewhere in the distance? Maybe more than one? She definitely heard voices. And thank all the gods, they’d surely know a way out of this library! Maybe they had a _map_ …

 

But as Ginny approached the two people standing behind a tall shelf of folios, she experienced a sudden and very strong desire to keep her presence a complete secret. She held her breath and crouched down behind a cabinet.

 

“I feel that I need to tell her,” Draco said quietly. “But you know very well that I can’t.”

 

“Yes, I know,” replied Luna. “Or rather, I don’t know. Or rather, I sort of know… but then I don’t… but then I forget all about it, and I start humming a terribly tragic ancient ballad, or something along those lines… ”

 

“Yes, yes, but _I can’t!_ ” Draco said impatiently. “Even though I can’t tell her anything, I still remember what it is that I can’t say. And I know why, Luna.”

 

What the _hell_ was all this about? Ginny leaned closer to the shelf and tried to press her ear to it. A sheaf of old paper tickled the side of her neck dreadfully.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” said Luna. “But perhaps you’ll think of a way.”

 

“There is no way,” said Draco. His voice had a hopeless, dreary heaviness.

 

 

The new Ban-Righ Pub in Hogsmeade was smoky and loud and ridiculously crowded that night, and so filled with alumni that it was a regular old-home week, Ginny thought. Quiet nostalgia would have been the last thing she wanted. Whenever she returned to Hogsmeade for any reason, it was always harder than she thought it would be; it always reminded her of those old times that she’d rather forget, thought that she _had_ forgotten, that they’d all forgotten. It was rather a good thing, then, she thought, that none of their eardrums would probably ever be the same. She’d never thought that traditional Irish bards could be so _loud_ , although the speed-metal guitars probably had a lot to do with it.

She tossed down the shot of Maker’s Mark and slammed the glass on the bar, harder than she had intended.

 

“Another,” she said to the bartender.

 

There was a brief lull while the Electrified Bard trio took a break, and Ginny tried to find Luna. She had some vague idea of asking her about the exchange she’d heard between her friend and Draco Malfoy the night before in the Ministry library. Why were Luna and Malfoy talking together, and who had they been talking about? Why had the tone of their conversation been so strangely intimate, so tense, so… almost desperate? It just didn’t make any _sense_ , and Weasleys were, after all, constitutionally incapable of leaving unsolved mysteries alone. 

 

When Ginny finally saw Luna standing near the bathrooms, there was still a huge table between them, and she didn’t think much of her chances of getting round it. But—oh, that was the _least_ of her problems. She groaned. Luna was talking earnestly to Blaise Zabini, who was smiling and nodding and putting a hand on her arm. Ginny’s hands clenched into fists. If that bargain-basement gigolo hurt her friend… She wriggled and twisted in an attempt to get to Luna, finally losing her balance and falling against a warm, tall, thin someone. A man. She grabbed onto his arm to keep from falling flat on her face, and he pulled her up. She looked into the face of Draco Malfoy. Ginny could feel her cheeks burning, and she didn’t know quite what to say, although anything that she _had_ wanted to say would have been drowned out by all the noise anyway. But when she saw the look on his face, she didn’t know what she would have said, anyway. She wished that she had a drink in her hand.

 

She didn’t know what to think of how he was looking at her, or how to think of it. The cheerfully chattering room seemed to melt away around them. There was nothing but the way he looked at her, as if he was pouring some kind of message through his eyes, something that he couldn’t say to her in words. She could feel her breathing quickening, and she blinked, unable to bear the scrutiny of those bright, mirrorlike gray eyes. The past was colliding with the present, a past that had never been, had never come to fruition, and now, of course, never should. Or could. Or would. He moistened his lips, as if about to speak.

 

There was a sudden lull in the room. The trio was picking up their instruments again. The lead singer was saying something about requests, she thought. Asking if anybody had any requests. But nobody was saying anything. _Why doesn’t somebody say something? It was so loud just a minute ago and now it’s so quiet and there’s nothing but Draco Malfoy looking at me and we might be alone, all alone in a roomful of people, and I don’t think I can take another second of this and—_

 

“ _Táim sínte ar do thuama_ ,” said a voice. It was Draco’s. “’I Am Stretched On Your Grave.’ Play that, why don’t you?”

 

It was a hush that fell over the entire pub now, not just a lull, and everyone’s head turned towards Draco. Everyone was staring uneasily at him. _The spectre at the feast,_ Ginny thought again. _It’s as if he knows something. Something that nobody else knows…._

 

Luna slipped in on Ginny’s other side, and she had Blaise’s hand in hers. He was looking at her confusedly, and she was giving him the same strange, steady sort of look that Draco was giving Ginny.

 

“Yes,” she said. “’I Am Stretched On Your Grave.’ We’d love to hear that. It’s such a lovely song.”

 

And it was lovely, Ginny thought numbly as she listened to the trio play an acoustic version. But it was also creeping the _hell_ out of her.

 

__

_I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever,_

_If your hands were in mine, I'd be sure they'd not sever,_

_My appletree, my brightness 'tis time we were together,_

_For I smell of the earth and am worn by the weather._

__

 

“Luna, what is this?” Ginny hissed out of the side of her mouth.

 

“Hush,” said Luna. “Just listen.”

 

 

__

_When my family thinks that I'm safe in my bed,_

_From night until morning I am stretched at your head._

_Calling out to the air with tears hot and wild,_

_My grief for the girl that I loved as a child._

__

 

“What is this all _about_?” whispered Ginny.

 

“I can’t tell you,” said Luna. “Listen to the song.”

 

__

_Do you remember the night we were lost_

_In the shade of the blackthorn and the chill of the frost._

_Thanks be to Jesus we did what was right_

_And your maidenhead still is your Pillar of Light._

_The priests and the friars approach me in dread,_

_Because I still love you, my love, and you’re dead._

_And still would be your shelter through rain and through storm_

_For with you in the cold ground I cannot sleep warm._

__

 

“I have never heard anything so creepy in all my life! Luna, what’s going _on_? And what are you doing with _Blaise Zabini_?”

 

“I’m trying to do the right thing,” said Luna.

 

“Blaise wouldn’t know the right thing if it chased him down, tackled him, and bit him on the arse,” said Ginny.

 

“Hush,” said Luna.

 

“I give up,” said Ginny.

 

“That’s probably a good idea,” said Luna.

 

__

_I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever,_

_If your hands were in mine, I'd be sure they'd not sever,_

_My appletree, my brightness 'tis time we were together,_

_For I smell of the earth and am worn by the weather. "_

__  
Ginny had certainly planned to Apparate home afterwards. But she was so unsettled after the “Malfoy Incident”, as she privately referred to it in her own mind, that she knew perfectly well just how likely she was to splinch herself into a thousand red-haired pieces out of sheer nervousness. She had drunk more than she’d planned too, which was unusual for her. She always stopped with a pint of beer, maybe two, but no tonight. Luna seemed fully determined to go home immediately with Blaise Zabini and would not be talked out of the project, so Ginny eventually gave up after several dire warnings, all of which she was afraid would be ignored.

 

“There’s a very nice little inn right down the street,” said Luna. “Maybe you ought to stay. Here’s a toothbrush.”

 

Ginny decided not to ask why Luna had been carrying an extra one around. When Luna was concerned, it was often better to just not ask questions. “Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, and I’ll help you wipe your memory about the entire Blaise Zabini incident to come, all right?”

 

Luna nodded gravely, and Ginny could not think of anything to do but to go upstairs and lie down, and try to sleep. But she couldn’t. After only a few minutes of restless tossing and turning, she gave up, got dressed again, slipped downstairs, and stood outside, breathing the fresh night air.

 

The new pub was at the very end of a development at the edge of Hogsmeade, right up against one side of a patch of woods. A paved path wound ahead, parallel to the trees. She peered ahead. It was well-lit, with a witchlight on a lamppost every few yards. Taking a midnight walk was an absolutely mad idea, of course, and yet… she really would be perfectly safe on her own; she had her wand with her. And she felt so incredibly restless. Her head was still spinning from the alcohol she’d drunk, Muggle alcohol that would give her a headache in the morning, she knew. But it blotted out reality a little better than wizard Firewhisky did. Or at least it should have been doing that. Instead, everything was sharper and clearer, unpleasantly so.

 

Ginny strolled slowly, listening to the quiet sounds of the night, from crickets chirping to owls hooting, breathing in the scents of earth and trees, trying to sort out her thoughts. This thing with Draco Malfoy was upsetting her more than she cared to admit. But it just made no sense. She honestly didn’t think she’d said a single word to him since Hogwarts, and now he was bloody well following her around, _looking_ at her so strangely, but never saying a word. And none of this explained Luna’s odd behavior, either…

 

She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t even hear the quiet footsteps behind her. But then a hand clamped down on her arm, and she gasped, reaching quickly for her wand. She wasn’t fast enough. Another hand imprisoned her other arm and swung her around to face…

 

Draco Malfoy.

 

Ginny drew breath to scream, but he clamped one big hand over her mouth before she could make a sound. _That’s it! I’m going to die_ , flashed through her mind. _That’s why he’s been acting so strangely. It explains all those odd looks. He’s gone mad and he’s going to kill me. Maybe this was always going to happen… And nobody even knows where I am! Wait, Luna does, but she’s in the middle of shagging Blaise Zabini. By the time anyone misses me, it’ll be too late!_ She squirmed desperately in Draco’s grip, trying to wriggle out of his grasp and kick his shins, finally snapping at his hand with her teeth. He swore at her and tightened his hold. She bit harder.

 

“Oh, _fuck!_ Are you trying to bite my fingers off, Weasley?” He dropped her unceremoniously to the ground, grimacing.

 

She whipped out her wand and held it in front of her, breathing heavily. “I’ll bite off more than that, Malfoy!”

 

He wrapped up his bleeding hand in part of his cloak, and while his attention was distracted, she threw a Stinging hex at him. “ _Ow_!” he nearly whined, and if the situation hadn’t been so serious, she would have been sorely tempted to laugh. “Stop it. Stop it now—“

 

“Why should I? You just _attacked_ me!”

 

Draco spread his hands wide. “I—look, I was just trying to talk to you. That’s why I came out here after I saw you leave the inn.“

 

“Oh, so you were following me!” Ginny brandished the wand. “Don’t come one step closer. I mean it, Malfoy. If you do, you’ll find out that my Bat-Bogey hex is as good as it ever was.”

 

He winced but didn’t step back. “All I did was touch you on the arm, and you tried to _hex_ me, and then you were about to scream. I didn’t do a damn thing to you. You don’t have to threaten me with those Bat-Bogeys. Yes, I remember exactly how awful they were. I’ve still got the scars, all right?”

 

“What a liar you are, Malfoy,” said Ginny, although deep down, she felt a twinge of guilt at that. _Could_ he really have the scars from a curse she’d thrown at him six years earlier? No. It wasn’t possible. He’d probably followed her out here because he was planning to rape her and strangle her and then bury her body in the woods, and now he was trying to make her feel _guilty_ on top of everything else.

 

“I’m not lying,” muttered Draco. “I just—Weasley, I have something very important to tell you. Listen to me. _Listen._ I mean what I say. I wouldn’t have followed you out here if this weren’t important, and I wouldn’t have even attempted to speak to you. _Please_ , just listen.”

 

_Please?_ thought Ginny, stunned. _Draco Malfoy actually said… ‘please’?_ Just how much _had_ he changed since Hogwarts? She realized that she had no idea at all. There was no reason for her to know, just as there was no reason for her to know, really, what sort of person he had even been at school. She knew what everyone else knew, and then the additional information that Harry Potter had told her. Draco Malfoy had been an unwilling Death Eater, an increasingly reluctant recruit to Voldemort’s cause, and, in the end, he had refused to become a murderer. And then there were a few things she knew that nobody else did. Just a few.

 

As they both stood in silence for a moment, the night air pulsing around them, she wondered if he was thinking of them as well. When Filch had caught Draco lurking outside the corridor at Professor Slughorn’s Christmas party during his sixth year, her fifth, and had dragged him into the room, she had been the only one there who had looked at him. She hadn’t been able to help it. He had looked away from her, violently. She had found him in the corridor near the Room of Requirement later that night, and they had nearly, so nearly, spoken to each other. But not quite. The day that she had found him in the Room of Requirement crying over a dead bird in his hand, months later, she had so nearly taken him into her arms. But not quite. The next night, after she had forced Harry to get rid of the Half-Blood Prince’s book that he had used to almost kill Draco with the Sectumsempra spell, she had stood over Draco in the infirmary for a very long time as he slept, and she had almost leaned down and kissed him. But not quite. And on the night after the last battle at Hogwarts, he had found her standing in a moonlit corridor, and she had reached up and so nearly stroked the side of his face, as if marking him with her touch. But not quite.

 

Now, on this forest path outside Hogsmeade, Ginny looked up into Draco Malfoy’s eyes, and she knew that he did remember all of these times when they had come so very, very close to one another, and yet had never quite touched, or never quite spoken. Whatever it was that had almost happened between them, had never quite happened. But now…

 

She cleared her throat. “Malfoy, you’ve got five minutes. Make it fast, and make it good.”

 

He gestured for her to walk with him. Ginny groaned inwardly. _Oh, perfect! A quiet walk in the woods with Draco Malfoy, where it’ll be really easy for him to hide my body after he’s done with me. Just what I always wanted._ She cast him a sideways glance. His hand really was bleeding profusely where she’d bitten it.

 

“Let me fix that,” she said, stopping on the path. She took his hand, trying to think about the fact that this was the first time she’d ever actually touched him, and tapped his mangled fingers with her wand, muttering a healing spell. He wasn’t saying anything. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Hadn’t he said he’d wanted to tell her something important? A very uncomfortable feeling was stealing through her.

 

“Uh—what did you think of the band?” she asked lamely.

 

“They were good, I suppose,” he murmured.

 

Ginny stroked Draco’s palm, and then the back of his hand, purely to make sure that the wounds had knitted properly, of course. His skin was very warm. “Kind of loud,” she said.

 

“Yes. What did you think of that song I asked them to play?”

 

“Uh…” She couldn’t stop thinking about how large his hands were. “Malfoy, why _did_ you ask for that song? Tuatha… dinna… whatever it was called…”

 

“ _Táim sínte ar do thuama_ ,” said Draco. “’I Am Stretched On Your Grave.’ That’s the title.”

 

“Okay. Whatever. The point is, why did you want to hear it? It was horribly depressing, if you want to know what I thought about it.”

 

Draco hesitated, as if thinking. “I had my reasons. Weasley, what do you think that song is actually about?”

 

Ginny blinked. “I don’t know. Your hand should be all right, I think. I’m sorry about that, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I mean, you did kind of attack me… Malfoy, what was it you wanted to tell me?”

 

“I need you to answer my question first.” Draco didn’t drop her hand.

 

“I told you that you only had five minutes. You’re using them up in asking me about song interpretations?” Ginny asked primly. She could hear her heart speeding up at the pressure of his fingers, and she sincerely hoped that _he_ couldn’t hear it.

 

“This is very important,” said Draco.

 

Was he stroking the back of her hand, just slightly? No. He couldn’t be. “I don’t know,” said Ginny. “I suppose…” She tried to think back, to remember lyrics. “The singer is obviously talking to a girl he loved who died, and he’s lying on her grave. Ick, by the way. It seems to me that… I’m not sure about this, but I think that he regrets something that he did or didn’t do. It’s almost as if he blames himself for her death. As if he should have been able to save her.”

 

“Ah.” Draco let out all his breath in a rush. “Yes, Weasley, I thought so as well. I need to ask you something now, and this is going to sound odd. You need to just bear with me. When something terrible happens, do you think that it can be brought to light on its own? Or… or when something terrible is _about_ to happen?”

 

Ginny tried to roll her eyes and to speak lightly, but she couldn’t. The feeling of fear was rising and rising in her. “Divination, you mean? Hermione always said that it was a very woolly subject, and I agree with her on that.”

 

Draco gave a short, bitter laugh. “I wish you were right, Ginny.”

 

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

 

“Nothing. I don’t mean anything.”

 

Ginny bit her lip. Something was beginning to come together, like a dark, shadowy shape that she could just barely see at the far end of a dim room. “Malfoy, I was in the Ministry library late last night. I saw you with Luna, and I overheard the two of you. Just a little bit. You said ‘I feel I have to tell her, but I can’t.’ Who were you talking about?”

 

She felt the hand in hers stiffen incredibly. When she looked up at Draco, all of the color had drained out of his face.

 

“Me,” she said slowly. “You were talking about me. You were, weren’t you?”

 

He stood as still as a statue. She snatched her own hand away from his. “Say something, Malfoy! Or nod your head—or something! Come on. I know it’s true. If it wasn’t true, you’d never be reacting like this. Is _this_ what you wanted to tell me? If it was, why couldn’t you just _tell_ me? What _is_ it that you felt you had to tell me, but couldn’t?”

 

Draco was absolutely still for another few moments, and then he started choking and coughing, almost doubled over, and managed to get out a few words. “Something-- something terrible.”

 

“But what?”

 

“I can’t,” he gasped. “I can’t.”

 

“You mean you _won’t!_ ” Ginny bent over him, spitting her words out. as if the air itself was drawing tighter and tighter, like a string getting ready to snap.

 

 

“Can’t.”

 

“You can’t do this to me, Draco Malfoy! You can’t scare me half to death and then not explain anything to me!” She reached out and started shaking his shoulders, but he just shook his head, his mouth tightly closed, and at that sight, her temper snapped. She slapped him.

 

Then she put her hand to her mouth. _Oh, God._ Ginny stepped back, her heart sinking. Her temper, her damned temper had got the better of her again. He was going to be angry at her, and she had a guilty sense that maybe, just _maybe_ she couldn’t exactly blame him. And yet… and yet, who did he think he was to do this to her? What right did Draco Malfoy think he had to frighten her this way and then leave her hanging?

He was very still for a moment. Then he stood up very straight, recovering himself. His face had a mocking smile again, and his cold expression was marred only by the flawless shape of her handprint on his pale cheek. The sight of him soothed her guilty conscience. This was the way that she had expected to see him all along.

 

“I should have known better than to try this,” he said.

 

“If all you’re going to do is to stalk me in the middle of the woods at midnight and say cryptic things,” said Ginny in the most dignified way she could manage, “then yes, you should have. I don’t know what you meant by it.”

 

“I didn’t mean anything at all, Weasley.” He gave her that appraising look again, but now it was a lot closer to a pitying sort of smirk.

 

“And let me tell you something else, Malfoy. You don’t need to look at me with pity,” said Ginny, turning round so that she could start back.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous. How could I have done? Malfoys don’t have feelings, do they?”

 

_Of course they don’t._ Ginny started to stomp off, but an iron hand clamped down on her arm. She tried unsuccessfully to shake it off. “Let go of me!”

 

“I assure you, I don’t desire your company at the moment any more than you do mine,” Draco said in tones of ice. “But I’m not letting you stroll about in the forest in the middle of the night, if you don’t mind.”

 

“I do.”

 

“Too bad, then. I’m doing it anyway.”

 

“Why should you care?”

 

“Why indeed.”

 

The return journey was not an amicable one. She didn’t even make a token attempt to get away from him, but he dropped her wrist within a few steps. Her skin felt cold where he had been touching her. Neither of them said a word.

 

When they reached the pub, he continued up the stairs with her to her room, which she desperately wished that he had not done. She glared at him in a way that had made lesser men cross their legs nervously in the past. “Do you think I’m going to invite you in, Malfoy?”

 

“No,” he said.

 

“Then why are you standing there and staring at me?”

 

The hallway was so dark, so narrow, and he was so close to her. He continued to stand, and to stare.

 

“I was thinking that you’re not beautiful,” he finally said.

 

Ridiculous that what he said should hurt her, but it did. “Thanks for the compliment,” she said, fumbling with the doorknob.

 

Draco moved even closer, examining her face. “Your features are far from perfect.”

 

“I think you’ve made that clear. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to go to—“

 

He put his hand over hers, stilling her movements. She bit back a groan and leaned against the door. For the first time, it occurred to her that she really might not get through this meeting with him. Something irrevocable might happen, an event that would give almost anything to avoid. It might be coming at her like a train about to jump its rails.

 

“Beauty doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve been with many beautiful women, and that quality doesn’t interest me much anymore.”

 

She raised her other hand to cover one ear, like a child. “I don’t want to hear about your girlfriends, Malfoy!”

 

“But you’re going to hear this.” He leaned closer still, and she could smell his skin now, musk and chocolate. “You live more intensely than anyone I’ve ever known. You vibrate with life, with heat. And you’ve got to keep on living, Weasley.”

 

 

She longed to grab him by his sinewy shoulders and shake the truth out of him, but then she would be forced to touch him, and she couldn’t do it. She must not do it. She opened her mouth. It might have been to say that she wasn’t planning on dying; it might have been to beg him to tell her what he really meant; it could not, _was_ not, so that he could bend down and cover her lips with his own and find them already open for him.

 

But that was what he did.

 

Ginny had been sure that he would feel cold. He did not. He had talked about the heat in _her,_ , but his mouth was like a devouring flame licking into her own. Her knees turned to water, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t held her up; and the heat of him met the fire in her. 

 

Nobody had ever kissed her in this way. She had _never_ felt a sensation sweet and terrifying, not once in her life. No, not even with Harry, who she’d thought she had loved more than words could express.

 

This couldn’t be happening. It could not be allowed. Draco Malfoy would eat her alive if she let him, so he could not continue for another moment. She could feel herself being snapped up by him, her judgment, her knowledge, her resolute vows that she would never have anything to do with again. They were all going. Almost gone.

 

“No.” She barely heard her own whisper.

 

His lips stilled on the side of her throat, and then they had disappeared. He had stepped away, back into the shadows, so that she could barely see him at all.

 

That helped. She could almost feel herself returning to her body, retreating back into the self he had invaded. Ginny folded her lips under her teeth to try to stop their throbbing.

 

“Go away, Malfoy, or I’ll make sure that all the slags in your department have a brand new mystery to solve—why you’ve suddenly lost all interest in shagging them up against random desks during the lunch hour, or any _ability_ to do so!” She whipped out her wand and pointed it in a distinctly threatening manner, and at a rather delicate portion of Draco’s anatomy. He swallowed hard, and finally went. Ginny stalked inside the room, slammed the door, and fell into bed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3, the smutty one-- enjoy. :)

CHAPTER THREE

She could not sleep. Could not. She tossed, and turned, and wrapped a pillow around her head, and wished that the couple next to her bonking each other’s brains out would just shut _up_ , and decided that she just hadn’t realized how amazingly large this bed actually was. Much too large for just one person. She felt an itching under her skin, somewhere. She was sure that if she could only get at, could only scratch it, then everything would be all right.

 

_I need a new... someone. Or something,_ she thought with a sigh. _It’s been too long._ Not that her only previous bed partner had been anything to owl home about, exactly, although the image of Molly Weasley unrolling a very, very short parchment detailing Harry Potter’s inadequacies in that area was wickedly amusing. Her experience had been limited and unexciting, eminently forgettable. And that wasn't how she'd planned for things to turn out in that area. She was a woman capable of feeling deep passion, but that world of feeling had been left unexplored, and she wasn't even sure how the failure had happened.

She flipped over, still thinking. It wasn't as if she hadn't had opportunities. Most recently, Dean. She had almost slept with her former boyfriend simply because she felt guilty about how she had treated him when she was fifteen years old. She'd used him rather coldly; she could see that now, although at the time, she had wanted Harry so desperately that she had been willing to use anyone or anything in order to get him. But a few weeks before, she had realized in time that if she slept with Dean, it would be one of the most selfish things she had ever done. The act would have been motivated by nothing more than obligation, or guilt, or both. No emotion more meaningful than that. She also suspected that if she repeated the experience, she just might have begun to feel the sort of deep pleasure that she had never felt with Harry. Choosing another partner might have opened a door. But that would be all. If she'd wanted no more than that, Blaise Zabini would be the best choice. So she had not done it.

There was a decanter of water on the side table. She poured a glass and drank it.

Her lips were throbbing. The heat in this room was just too high.

She sat up and touched her lips. Maybe she was getting sick.

That kiss. That kiss. It had been so long since she had allowed anyone to kiss her, so very long. She had imagined so many times what it really would have been like to kiss Draco, or no, not really imagined, but dreamed, and tried to suppress the dreams the moment she awoke, or her mind had wandered into some lonely place when she felt sad, and she had not been able to stop herself. She had done so many times that she had almost convinced herself that it couldn’t possibly be that good. It had never been very good with Harry, not kissing, not anything else.

But Draco's kiss was more than she ever could have imagined. It was... _other._

Her hand strayed between her legs, and she tried to think of nothing, just to bring herself to release. She tried to suppress the thought of moonlight shimmering off silvery hair, or a pair of intense grey eyes looking into hers, or a warm, strong hand clamping onto her arm. It was too much, and she could not finish, could not even have that relief.

She turned over again, smothered a scream on frustration in the pillow, and tried to fall asleep, sure that she could not. She could not block out the impossible images of everything that certainly should have had no chance of happening between her and a gray-eyed, silvery-haired young man in that extraordinarily large bed—things that wouldn’t be forgettable in the _least_ , things that made her shiver just to imagine them—there were words that haunted her, almost as if she heard them spoken all over again.

_When something terrible happens, Weasley, do you think that it can be brought to light on its own? Or when something terrible is about to happen?_

_I feel I have to tell her…_

_But I can’t. I can’t._

She was running through a forest by night, fog curling over the path so thickly that she couldn’t even see two steps in front of her, but somehow she had to keep running and running. The trees overhead were quaking in the wind, the branches writhing like tortured snakes, and she was sobbing. Draco was following her. She could feel his eyes boring into her back; she wished desperately that he would catch up with her, or stop her, or _something_ , but he stayed behind her in a steady pace. 

She finally turned on the path and screamed at him, her voice coming out in a whisper, as sometimes happened in dreams.   
_Can’t you tell me what it is >_

But he only shook his head and looked at her with sorrowful eyes. 

As she opened her mouth to scream again, a massive tree fell over the path. She saw it happening in slow motion, but it was impossible to escape. And Draco only stood and watched.   
She was being smothered in something soft and heavy, and hands were coming at her. She screamed. A large hand clapped itself over her mouth. Just in time, she started to come back to herself, to the time and place, and she kept herself from biting the palm. 

The hands pulled the weighty floppy things off her, and Ginny recognized them as blankets. Draco Malfoy’s face looked back at her from the other side. 

“What-- what are you doing here?” she asked stupidly.

“I’m in the room down the hall. Or was, I should say. That’s been two screams now, and I wouldn’t go for three, if I were you.”  
She relapsed back with a sigh, and even though she should have been angry at him, she could not be anything but glad.

“What was the dream?” he whispered.

“Nothing. I mean…” 

“Tell me, Ginny.”

In the darkness, it was possible to pretend that what was happening wasn’t quite real, that he wasn’t who he was, Draco Malfoy, perhaps that she was not Ginny Weasley, only two people who had met in the night and were sharing something that would never make it as far as the morning.   
“I dreamed about-- disaster,” she finally said. “And death, I think.”  
He sucked in his breath and moved away slightly.  
Ginny looked down at her hands. “I was afraid. Look, I never admit that to anyone, so you’d better keep it to yourself, Malfoy.”

“But you were afraid,” said Draco. “So am I. And I think I have more acquaintance with fear that you do.”

They looked at each. She could barely make out his features in the darkness. 

“Brave, brave Ginny Weasley,” he whispered, and he lifted his hand to smooth back a strand of hair from her face. 

Her hair was in order then, but his hand stayed where it was. 

When she didn’t respond, Draco began to pull back, which was why she later knew that she couldn’t blame what happened next on alcohol or madness. She hadn't drunk more than a few mugs of ale, anyway. No, she had known exactly what she was doing.

“Stay,” she said. “Please, Malfoy, don’t go.”

“Call me Draco,” he whispered in her ear, and he stayed.  
She felt impossibly awkward and shy as he leaned back towards her. He stopped again and laid his hand over hers.   
“How long has it been, Ginny?”  
“More than a year,” she admitted.   
“Potter,” said Draco, and she did not pretend to not understand what he meant.

“Yes. Harry,” she said. They had waited for so long; she had saved herself for him, and she winced at the memory of her experiences with Harry, how they'd begun, how they'd ended. Their first time had been fast and hard and miserably painful for her, and he hadn’t seemed to care. Or, to be more accurate, he hadn’t seemed to be _able_ to care how she felt. While only the first time had been painful, the rest had never changed. To do these precious guarded things with Draco Malfoy, of all people, was like spending herself recklessly, spending herself like water, throwing everything she had into this bed with him, because hoarding herself had ended so badly. 

But she would do them.

“Has it been long enough?” asked Draco, sounding genuinely curious. 

“Yes. More than enough.” 

It all seemed to move so quickly after that, like a beautiful cleansing dream, but Ginny couldn’t seem to hold onto any of the details. Her nightgown came off, and so did his shorts and shirt; he caressed and kissed her body, and it all moved forward with the speed of two colliding spells. She was underneath him before she even properly realized what was happening, her legs spread, her arms up around his sinewy shoulders. 

When he began to enter her, she winced. He stopped, his face just above hers.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Please, don’t stop. It’s just… it’s been such a long time.” There were other things she could have added, such as how much larger he was than the only other man she had known in this way, that it seemed forever since she had really wanted this, desired this, so it felt almost as if she never had done anything, but she could not speak, because he kissed her again. Then his hand went down between her legs, and he began stroking her. She closed her eyes; a warm wave of weakness washed over her, and then a building tightness, a tingling. He eased off and then started over, again and again, until she begged him in a strangled voice. Then he moved forward, between her legs, and moved surely and firmly, bringing her to orgasm, the intensity almost frightening after the waiting, and in the middle of an especially strong, delicious pulse, he pushed into her, hard. She convulsed helplessly around him, discomfort and pleasure tangling into one staggering sensation, and he slid steadily in and in. During her third orgasm, or maybe her fourth, he had pushed completely into her. He stroked her once more time, and she moaned helplessly, a sound torn out of her. It had never, ever been like this before; all of her inner muscles were seizing around his entire length, stretched as never before, and his size and shape pressed against new sensitive spots with each wave of pleasure.

She saw his face contort grimly. “Lie still, Ginny. For just a moment. Please, or… or…”

A new kind of pleasure rushed through her. She had done this to him. With all of his experience, all of the practice he had ever had with other women, and who knew, maybe even some men, she had brought him within a hair’s breadth of climax in minutes. For an instant, she was almost tempted to move, to feel him lose control utterly. But she wanted desperately to keep this madness from ending so soon, so she did lie still.

He lost control soon enough, swearing as he poured himself into her, rigid and shuddering under her hands, gasping for breath as he lay on top of her. She ran her fingers over his sweat-slippery back and sides, unable to keep from touching him. He kissed her, and stroked her face and hair, and somewhere in the middle, the exhaustion took over and she fell asleep at last. 

 

When Ginny woken up in the morning, with only a faintly aching head, she reached across the pillow. He was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter! :) More fics coming very soon.

Chapter Four  
Two days later, Ginny pushed an errant wisp of red hair back from her face. It was Friday, and in her opinion, the morning had started much too early, with not nearly enough coffee involved. At least that was what she told herself as an explanation for her shaking hands, her dizzy head. She had thought that Draco might send an owl to her that day. He had not. Then she had been sure that he would call her Muggle phone; she knew that everyone who worked for the Department of Mysteries was required to have one. Hers did not ring. Then she had stared out of the window in the very small hours of the morning, watching darkness turn to dawn, hating herself for being such a fool. _Two years_ of celibacy, and she had jumped right into bed with Draco Malfoy, like a fool. She couldn’t have chosen anyone worse. She ignored the small voice whispering in her head that something else had been broken, too, far beyond a sexless streak. Maybe her heart. 

Now, she was standing in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic with Blaise Zabini and a large number of construction-elves as they maneuvered five huge marble blocks into place. These would become the sculpture-in-the-round that Ginny had been commissioned to create, and she needed to see how they would be stationed before she had them levitated back to her studio and began to work on them. Four was positioned where they were needed, and the fifth was going up now.

“Blaise? This one should go to the left of the fountain, right over here, don’t you think? Blaise? Earth to Blaise Zabini?”She glanced over at Blaise. Actually, she was a bit worried about him. He hadn’t made so much as one crack about the erection of marble columns since they’d arrived at six a.m. He was being perfectly quiet, and he was actually looking at blueprints. Luna was by his side, pointing out something with a pencil. Ginny’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Her friend hadn’t asked for a Memory-erasing potion since her night with Blaise, either. Maybe they actually _would_ be good for each other.

As for her own night with Draco…

It had meant nothing. She could almost convince herself that nothing had happened anyway, only a Firewhisky-fueled dream in the night. He hadn’t owled her, or called, or made any attempt to speak to her. She would forget all about what had happened with him. She had forgotten it. Completely.  
Ginny walked critically round the fifth column as the elves lowered it to the floor with Levitation spells. This was the one that would contain the sculpture of the witch, and she could really see how it would match up with her sketches… yes…

“Rotate it just a bit this way, could you, Sneppy?” she called to the lead elf. He nodded and gestured to the rest. As they moved the column, she looked back and forth to try to get some idea of how it would fit in with the fountain. Maybe just a bit to the left… Then her stomach plummeted.

Draco Malfoy stood next to the fourth column. His face was deathly pale, his arms crossed, his eyes enormous, and he was staring directly at her. _Oh, gods,_ she thought.

“Get out of here, Malfoy,” she hissed at him.

He shook his head.

“I’m working on my public art project. _Out._ ”

“No,” he said, not moving a muscle.

“Fine,” she sighed, walking over to him. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want, then? Let’s get this over with.”

He was trembling from head to foot. She could see it, now that she was standing so close to him. He crooked a forefinger, beckoning her closer, and although she wasn’t at all sure why, she leaned in.

“ _Ginny_ ,” he said in a cracked, urgent whisper. She jumped. He had only called her by her first name on the night before, or to be more precise, he had moaned her name as she had screamed his, muffling the sound in his shoulder. 

“What on earth is it, Draco?” she whispered back, not realizing that she’d done the same thing until it was too late. 

He glanced to the side. She followed his eyes and saw that the head of his division of the Department of Mysteries, Odonte Imperceptus, was standing in one of the doorways that led to a corridor, just far back enough so that he was in the shadows and could barely be seen. He glowered at Draco and gave him a barely perceptible shake of the head.

Draco’s lips tightened. “Nothing, Weasley,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

Disappointment flooded through her, or anger at him, or disgust at herself for expecting anything more—some sort of emotion that set her teeth on edge, anyway. “I’m too busy for this,” muttered Ginny, stalking back towards the fountain. Those construction elves—what _were_ they thinking? The fifth column wasn’t even coming down towards the floor in a straight line. She wasn’t trying to sculpt the Leaning Tower of Pisa, after all—

Somebody was walking up behind her. She could see that it was Draco, but she resolutely ignored him. If he wanted to say anything to her, he would; if not, well, she was done with playing his game. Suddenly, he tripped over something on the floor and stumbled. Ginny gasped. Draco Malfoy did not _trip._ He moved with the unconscious grace of a dancer and the stealth of a panther, he’d never made a clumsy move in all his life, and… and Malfoys did not _trip_. He was about to fall flat on his face. No—he was about to fall flat on _her_! She tried to scramble out of the way, but it wasn’t necessary, because his big hands reached out to shove her. Then he landed right on top of her and knocked the breath out of her. She felt him roll both of them over, several yards across the floor. _This_ was more than just a fall!

“What the fuck are you _doing_ , Malf—“ she started to demand, but she couldn’t even finish her sentence before it happened.

The construction-elves all shouted at once, and a secretary who’d been watching from the side of the atrium gave a long, shrill scream; something rumbled and scraped, and the fifth marble column crashed to the granite floor, exactly where Ginny had been standing.

Ginny lay flat on her stomach, staring at the shattered bits of marble. Draco moved slightly so that his full weight wasn’t on top of her anymore, but she still couldn’t breathe. He had clasped her hands in his. That was how he had pulled her completely out of the way.

_If your hands were in mine, I'd be sure they'd not sever._

Someone was standing over her, standing over them both. It was Odonte Imperceptus, and he had a face like a thundercloud.

“You’re fired, Malfoy,” he growled.

Draco got up off the floor quite unhurriedly, pulling Ginny with him. He was covered in marble dust, she saw. She was sure that she was, too.

“You can’t fire me, Imperceptus,’ he said coldly. “I’ve stuck to the terms of the contract. I never told Weasley a thing.”  
His boss looked as if he had started to suck on a lemon. “You dare to talk to me like that, Malfoy?”  
Draco stepped a bit closer to him, and even covered with marble dust, the look on his face caused the other man to blanch and step back. “Try firing me, and you’ll find out what it is to cross a Malfoy,” he said with quiet menace. “But anyway, I quit.”

“Go ahead!” blustered Odonte. “You’ve got to work somewhere at the Ministry under the terms of your settlement with the Wizengamot.”

“I should rather work as a janitor sweeping up marble dust to the end of my days than spend one more moment at the bloody Department of Mysteries,” said Draco. “I’m closing that project down, Imperceptus, if it’s the last thing I do. And I won’t be the only one involved in that effort, either.” He offered Ginny his arm. “Shall we? I think you’d benefit from a bit of a wash-up.”

Ginny thought that she would as well. Actually, she thought that she’d benefit from anything she did that involved going anywhere with Draco Malfoy. When she looked out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Luna was leading Blaise somewhere, and that they were both covered with marble dust, too.

Ginny sat at a small café table at _Madame Lonelyheart’s Coffehouse_ the next afternoon, waiting for Draco, her heart pounding unevenly. When he came in and sat down across from her, she gave him a tentative smile. God, what did she say _now_? She was the one who’d sent the owl asking him to meet her there, but she was suddenly tonguetied. She supposed that she couldn’t exactly expect him to begin the conversation. He’d already done enough for her. In fact, if he hadn’t shoved her out of the way the day before, she would have been squashed as flat as one of her mother’s pumpkin pancakes. Ginny supposed that she could begin with that. Especially if she pretended their night together had never happened, which she thought would be best. She cleared her throat.

“Um… I just wanted to thank you for saving my life yesterday, Malfoy.”

He sipped at his espresso. “You’re very welcome, Ginny.”

Again, she felt that little shock she’d felt the day before when he’d called her by her first name. The corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk, but his eyes were soft. “I’ve saved your life. Don’t you think we’re a bit past the ‘Weasley’ stage?”

“Uh…” fumbled Ginny. “If you mean…”  
“Yes, I _mean._

She gathered her courage. “If you’re talking about what happened a couple of nights ago, I hadn’t heard a word from you since! So I thought…”

“You thought I’d used you, and now I would discard you,” he said flatly.

“That’s the sort of thing I’ve heard that you do all the time,” she muttered into her carrot and raisin muffin.

“Have you really?”  
“Um…” She tried to cast her memory back to specific rumors she’d heard about Draco’s castoff girlfriends, and she could think of none.

“You’re thinking of Blaise Zabini,” said Draco, as if reading her mind. “I’ve never done that, you know.”

“All right… Draco.” She gulped her own espresso to cover her confusion, and ordered another.

“A nontuple, isn’t it? You’ll be up until infinity o’clock or so tonight, you know,” he said.

“That’s what Luna always said. By the way…” Ginny hesitated. “I saw Luna with Blaise. Afterwards, I mean.”

“That’s because she chose to do the same thing I did. The only difference is that she did it for Zabini.”

“But I… I still don’t understand what you did. I mean, obviously, I know what you _did._ You saved my life.” Ginny looked down. “But how did either one of you know what was going to happen?”

“I can tell you now,” said Draco. “I was working at the Department of Mysteries, as you know. Their latest project involved attempts to find a method of predicting tragedies—accidents, fires, losses, floods, and so forth. If they’d succeeded, it would have saved a great deal of money for insurance companies, you see. The problem was…” He traced a pattern on the table with one finger. Ginny wondered why on earth he suddenly seemed so reluctant to continue. “The problem was that everyone involved with the project was only able to predict a tragedy which would happen to an individual person already known to them. And once any of us learned about a tragedy to come… well, the same thing happened in each case.”

“They all warned the other person so that they could avoid it,” guessed Ginny. “Uh… how did Luna find out about this so that she could warn Blaise? She worked in the Department of Dreadfully Detailed and Remarkably Meaningless Memoranda.”

“Because she changed cubicles, I believe,” said Draco. “A memorandum was sent by accident from the Department of Mysteries regarding the project, and she pieced it together from there.”

“But why _Blaise Zabini_?” Ginny wondered.

“Ah…” Draco seemed remarkably interested in the pattern of the table for a moment. “I believe she’d been interested in some sort of intimate relationship with him for a long time.”

“Oh,” said Ginny. “It was, um, clever of Luna to figure all of it out.”

“She’s a very clever girl,” said Draco.

“So,’ said Ginny. “Draco, there’s one thing I don’t understand at all. Why weren’t you able to just _tell_ me about any of this before? Why couldn’t you have warned me?”

“We weren’t allowed to explicitly warn anyone,” he said. “All employees involved with the project—“ He grimaced. “What an appalling and perfectly un-Malfoyish word; ‘employees!’ Anyway, anyone _involved_ with the project was under a secrecy spell. But everyone who learned about a tragedy which would happen to a l—I mean, which would happen to a person known to them was able to find a way to warn this other person, no matter what it cost them.”

“I’m sorry that I got you in trouble,” said Ginny.

“I don’t think I could have endured another day of that job anyway,” said Draco. “And I wasn’t about to watch you crushed by a marble column without lifting a finger when I knew it was going to happen. I couldn’t have lived with myself—I mean, common human decency—well, you know what I mean.”

“Common decency,” echoed Ginny. “Not…” She wished she hadn’t said the last word.

“I wasn’t quite sure what would happen if I broke the code,” said Draco. “I took a day to research the possibilities.”

“So what did you find out?”

“There was a chance that I might have died. Not horribly, you understand. A quiet dropping-dead sort of thing.”

She sucked in her breath.

“Oh, don’t worry. I was wrong about that. But if I had been right…“ He looked at her directly then. “I would have still found a way.”

There was a brief, awkward silence. Ginny looked down at Draco’s hands, which were clasped before him on the café table. They were trembling very slightly. She looked down at her own hands. They were as well.  
 _If your hands were in mine, I'd be sure they'd not sever._

Very slowly and deliberately, she reached forward and laid her hand along the back of Draco’s fingers. After a minute’s hesitation, during which he didn’t move a muscle, she could feel her cheeks start to burn in embarrassment, and she wanted to sink through the floor and disappear because she was sure she’d misjudged what he wanted now, he opened his palm wide and curved her hand in his, clasping it. They sat like that, silently, for a long time.

 

“How did those visions of tragedy actually work?” Ginny finally asked. “Could you see it coming with just… anyone?”  
Draco shook his head. “No. Only with people who were somehow… close. Or who desired closeness.”

“Close.” Ginny rolled the word over in her mind. “So can you still read the future at all?”

Draco shrugged. “I don’t know. What are you doing tonight, Ginny?”

“Nothing that I know of. Luna will probably be out with Blaise, I suppose.”

“So you’ll have your flat to yourself, I suppose?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Then I can think of something your very near future might involve,” said Draco.

“And what’s that?” asked Ginny, although she had a feeling that she just might know the answer to her own question.

“My getting a tour of your flat. Especially of certain rooms.”

“Such as my bedroom?”

“Very possibly.”

“Your precognitive abilities are holding out very well so far,” said Ginny. “As for past tragedies… um… well, my past involving bedrooms and beds and other people in them is more a bad comedy than anything else. Or maybe a very, very dull farce. About as exciting as reading the dictionary out loud.”

“Oh dear,” said Draco. “That really is a tragedy. Then I can make a guess as to future joys. I’ll show them all to you in that bed. Very slowly. One by one.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe you really _can_ read the future, Draco,” said Ginny, unable to suppress a smile. As she walked out of the café with him, her hand cupped in his, she had a tingly, excited feeling that he probably could. And that it might, just might, turn out to be a brighter future that either of them had ever expected.

+++  
Here's the original prompt, btw:  
Briefly  
> describe what you'd like to receive in your fic:  
> Post-Hogwarts. Draco has  
> learned something terrible that concerns Ginny and feels he  
> has to tell her.  
> (They barely know each other, so you’ll have to bring  
> them together.) His  
> message should be something believable yet completely  
> unexpected.  
>   
>   
>   
> The tone/mood of the fic: Tense  
>   
>   
>   
> An element/line of dialogue/object you would specifically  
> like in your fic: A  
> quiet walk in the woods  
>   
>   
>   
> Preferred rating of the fic you want: PG to R  
>   
>   
>   
> Canon or AU? Everything but the epilogue is fine  
>   
>   
>   
> Deal Breakers (anything you don't want?): No torture,  
> cheating spouses/lovers,  
> gay Harry, dead Weasleys, Quidditch, or sappy  
> ending  
>

her resolute vows that she would never have anything to do with again.


End file.
